The Union government has no intention of filing criminal charges against Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, writer Arundhati Roy and others who spoke in favour of ‘azadi' for Jammu and Kashmir at a seminar here last week, highly placed sources told The Hindu on Tuesday.
The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is taking a strident position, insisting that a case of sedition be lodged against those who spoke at the seminar, but the Centre believes that acting on this demand will undermine the fragile dialogue process the government's three interlocutors have begun in Srinagar.
With Dileep Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and M.M. Ansari urging those Kashmiris raising slogans in favour of ‘azadi' to put their thoughts down in writing, the irony of criminalising a mere speech has not been lost on New Delhi.
“We knew the BJP would try and make the holding of the seminar an issue,” the sources said, adding police permission for the public event was given because the organisers could easily have gone to court had the authorities tried pre-emptively to gag them. The meeting was thus videographed, and the proceedings were scrutinised.
The sources said permission of the Ministry of Home Affairs was not needed for the police to file a case of sedition, but added that North Block did not believe that charging or arresting Mr. Geelani and Ms. Roy made sense.
“Geelani himself has said some 70 cases have been filed against him so let there be a 71st,” the sources said. They also admitted — as Ms. Roy herself notes in a statement issued on Tuesday — that scores of people in the Kashmir Valley say every day what the writer and the Hurriyat leader are accused of saying at the meeting. If the two of them are now to be arrested for sedition on the basis of their speech, so would scores of people in Srinagar.
The sources welcomed the efforts the three interlocutors had made so far and said the Centre's aim was to begin a broad political process with all sections of the people in the State, but especially with those who say they want autonomy and ‘azaadi.'
Correction: an editing error has been corrected on 27/10/2010
Keywords: Kashmir dispute, freedom of speech, sedition case
It made me happy to read this article because in a sense, it stands for what the Indian establishment sees as crucial to the nation's ethos. Criminalizing freedom of speech is not part of any democratic institution and the fact that the Centre consciously realizes this fills me with some hope. I don't condone Arundhati Roy's statements - in fact the lady could do with a little bit of thought before speaking. But if there really was to be a case filed against her, I would recommend filing it against her blase statements regarding the Indian establishment. It is her good fortune that she finds herself in a country that not only attempts to uphold democracy and freedom of speech - amidst all the corruption, drama and institutional immaturity that definitely exists - through creating space for anti-nationalist speech and criticisms to surface. Given the dimensions and origins of our republic, she ought to venture a little more elegantly in her discourse on Indian democracy for it is intellectually immature and moribund to misuse this freedom of speech than to not have it at all. But it makes me happy that India allows for the existence of these individuals who get so wrapped up in their discursive trappings that they lose sight of the bigger picture. After all, doesn't the ideological foundation of democracy depend on the existence of these idiosyncrasies? Nehru would be happy. As for Kashmir, I hope that the Centre uses as much tact and open-mindedness to truly see the situation at hand, instead of politicizing the situation to a degree that forgets the values and ethics that must create the basis of any peace-building decision.
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